The Spectator

Letters: the West has failed Afghanistan

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The blame game

Sir: Like many who served in Afghanistan, I have watched with growing dismay the recent events unfolding in Kabul (‘Mission unaccomplished’, 21 August). I have also listened with growing frustration to the grand speeches of politicians, pointing fingers while distancing themselves from this tragic debacle.

David Galula, the French military scholar well known for his counter-insurgency thinking, described the role of the military in such operations as providing a secure space for the legitimate government to work safely with the people. He accepted that the military could also be given other suitable and appropriate tasks but was very clear that they must never be in charge. These precepts were at the heart of all our planning and operations. We understood our role and bent body and soul to the task at hand. It seemed to us at the time that few politicians in national capitals and international institutions around the world understood their role or showed the same commitment: none in Kabul did.

No single person, country or organisation is ‘to blame’, and I often reflect on whether I could have tried harder, done more or taken a different approach. The crying shame is that what we are now witnessing was so avoidable.

Maj Gen (retd) Colin Boag

Glasgow

Not so sweet FA

Sir: In his review of Games People Played: a Global History of Sport (Books, 21 August), Simon Kuper repeats the commonly stated view that the FA banned women’s football until 1971. For all their faults, the FA never had the power of the Taliban. As Dr Kevin Moore points out in What You Think about Football Is Wrong, in 1921 the FA suggested affiliated clubs refuse permission for women to play at their grounds, which isn’t quite the same thing (though whether the effect was the same is another matter).

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